Abasement before Brussels

of small nations in Europe—the Scots, the Welsh, the Basques, the Catalans, the Flemings—strongly support membership in the EU, which is predicated upon the extinction of national sovereignty.

It is possible, he says, that

the nationalist parties’ leaders don’t perceive the contradiction, being blinded by ideology.

But there is another explanation.

By leading their nominally independent countries, they forever will be able to feed at the great trough of Brussels and distribute its largesse in true clientelistic fashion. The nationalist leaders certainly lead their people, but by the nose.

The Scots,

once the canniest and most provident of people, now believe that improvidence is the greatest of political virtues, and that it is their inalienable right to run huge budgetary deficits for the sake of ‘social justice’—that is, for services paid for by someone else. The Scots think that if they leave the UK and join Europe, they will be allowed to run any deficits they like.

But

before long, the Scots will be constrained to live approximately within their means.

It is one of the first times in history that ‘Out of the frying pan into the fire’

has become not a warning, but the desired destination of substantial proportions of whole populations.